Journal of Environmental Health Sciences (한국환경보건학회지)

Korean Society of Environmental Health (한국환경보건학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Spatial Epidemiology and Environmental Health: On the Use of Spatially Referenced Health and Environment Data

공간역학과 환경보건: 공간위치정보 활용에 대한 고찰

  • Han, Dai-Kwon (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Rural Public Health, Texas A&M Health Science Center) ;
  • Hwang, Seung-Sik (Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Inha University)
  • 한대권 (텍사스A&M 보건대학 역학과) ;
  • 황승식 (인하대 의학전문대학원 사회의학교실)
  • Received : 2011.02.04
  • Accepted : 2011.02.14
  • Published : 2011.02.28
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Recent advances in Geographic Information Systems and spatial statistical and analytical methods, along with the availability of spatially referenced health and environmental data, have created unique opportunities to investigate spatial associations between environment exposures and health outcomes at multiple spatial scales and resolutions. However, the increased use of spatial data also faces challenges, one of which is to ensure certainty and accuracy of locational data that meets the needs of a study. This article critically reviews the use of spatially referenced data in epidemiologic studies, focusing on the issue of locational uncertainty generated from the process of geocoding health and environmental data. Primarily, major issues involving the use of spatially referenced data are addressed, including completeness and positional accuracy, potential source of bias and exposure misclassification, and implications for epidemiologic studies. The need for critical assessment and caution in designing and conducting spatial epidemiology studies is briefly discussed.

Keywords

References

  1. Elliott, P. and Wartenberg, D. : Spatial epidemiology: current approaches and future challenges. Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(9), 998-1006, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.6735
  2. Nuckols, J. R., Ward, M. H. and Jarup, L. : Using geographic information systems for exposure assessment in environmental epidemiology studies. Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(9), 1007-1015, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.6738
  3. Cromley, E. K. and McLafferty, S. L. : GIS and Public Health. New York, Guilford, 2002.
  4. Khan, O. A. : Geographic Information Systems and Health Applications. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2003.
  5. Elliott, P., Wakefield, J. C., Best, N. G. and Briggs, D. J. : Spatial Epidemiology: Methods and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  6. International Journal of Health Geographics. http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com
  7. Spatial and Saptio-temporal Epidemiology. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18775845
  8. Krieger, N. : Place, space, and health: GIS and epidemiology. Epidemiology, 14, 384-385, 2003.
  9. Richards, T., Pickle, L. and Rushton, G. : Prostate cancer and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 30, 1-118, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2005.09.001
  10. Ricketts, T. : Symposium: geographic information systems (GIS). Annual Review of Public Health, 24, 1-82, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.100901.140924
  11. Croner, C. M. : Public health, GIS, and the internet. Annual Review of Public Health, 24, 57-82, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.012902.140835
  12. Lawson, A., Biggeri, A., Bohning, D., Lesaffre, E., Viel, J. F. and Bertollini, R. : Disease mapping and risk assessment for public health. New York, Wiley, 1999.
  13. Moore, D. A. and Carpenter, T. E. : Spatial analytical methods and geographic information systems: use in health research and epidemiology. Epidemiologic Reviews, 21(2), 143-161, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.epirev.a017993
  14. Bailey, T. C. and Gatrell, A. C. : Interactive Spatial Data Analysis. London: Longman, 1995.
  15. Cressie, N. : Statistics for Spatial Data. New York, Wiley, 1993.
  16. Rushton, G. : Public health, GIS, and spatial analytic tools. Annual Review of Public Health, 24, 43-56, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.012902.140843
  17. Kulldorff, M. and Nagarwalla, N. : Spatial disease clusters: detection and inference. Statistics in Medicine, 14, 799-810, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.4780140809
  18. Han, D., Rogerson, P. A., Nie, J., Bonner, M. R., Vena, J. E., Muti, P., Trevisan, M., Edge, S. and Freudenheim, J. L. : Geographic clustering of residence in early life and subsequent risk of breast cancer (United States). Cancer Causes and Control, 15, 921-929, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-004-1675-y
  19. Beyea, J. : Geographic exposure modeling: a valuable extension of geographic information systems for use in environmental epidemiology. Environmental Health Perspectives, 107(Suppl 1), 181-190, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.99107s1181
  20. Jerrett, M., Arain, A., Kanaroglou, P., Beckerman, B., Potoglou, D., Sahsuvaroglu, T., Morrison, J. and Giovis, C. : A review and evaluation of intraurban air pollution exposure models. Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 15(2), 185-204, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500388
  21. Briggs, D. : The role of GIS: coping with space (and time) in air pollution exposure assessment. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health A, 68(13-14), 1243-1261, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1080/15287390590936094
  22. Ryan, P. H. and LeMasters, G. K. : A review of land-use regression models for characterizing intraurban air pollution exposure. Inhalation Toxicology, 19(Suppl 1), 127-33, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1080/08958370701495998
  23. Huang, Y. L. and Batterman, S. : Residence location as a measure of environmental exposure: a review of air pollution epidemiology studies. Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 10(1), 66-85, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500074
  24. Reynolds, P., Von Behren, J., Gunier, R. B., Goldberg, D. E. and Hertz, A. : Residential exposure to traffic in California and childhood cancer. Epidemiology, 15, 6-12, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ede.0000101749.28283.de
  25. Von Behren, J., Reynolds, P., Gunier, R. B., Rull, R. P., Hertz, A., Urayama, K. Y., Kronish, D. and Buffler, P. A. : Residential traffic density and childhood leukemia risk. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 17(9), 2298-2301, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-08-0338
  26. Ward, M. H., Nuckols, J. R., Weigel, S. J., Maxwell, S. K., Cantor, K. P. and Miller, R. S. : Identifying populations potentially exposed to agricultural pesticides using remote sensing and a geographic information system. Environmental Health Perspectives, 108, 5-12, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.00108s15
  27. Brody, J. G., Aschengrau, A., McKelvey, W., Rudel, R. A., Swartz, C. H. and Kennedy, T. : Breast cancer risk and historical exposure to pesticides from wide-area applications assessed with GIS. Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(8), 889-897, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.6845
  28. Bonner, M. R., Han, D., Nie, J., Rogerson, P. A., Vena, J. E., Muti, P., Trevisan, M., Edge, S. and Freudenheim, J. L. : Breast cancer risk and exposure in early life to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using total suspended particulates as a proxy measure. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 14, 53-60, 2005.
  29. Drummond, W. J. : Address matching: GIS technology for mapping human activity patterns. Journal of American Planning Association, 61, 240-251, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944369508975636
  30. Rushton, G., Armstrong, M. P., Gittler, J., Greene, B. R., Pavlik, C. E., West, M. M. and Zimmerman, D. L. : Geocoding in cancer research: a review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 30(Suppl 2), S16-24, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2005.09.011
  31. Han, D., Rogerson, P. A., Bonner, M. R., Nie, J., Vena, J. E., Muti, P., Trevisan, M. and Freudenheim, J. L. : Assessing spatio-temporal variability of risk surfaces using residential history data in a case control study of breast cancer. International Journal of Health Geographics, 4, 9, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-4-9
  32. Gilboa, S. M., Mendola, P., Olshan, A. F., Harness, C., Loomis, D., Langlois, P. H., Savitz, D. A. and Herring, A. H. : Comparison of residential geocoding methods in population-based study of air quality and birth defects. Environmental Research, 101(2), 256-262, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2006.01.004
  33. Oliver, M. N., Matthews, K. A., Siadaty, M., Hauck, F. R. and Pickle, L. W. : Geographic bias related to geocoding in epidemiologic studies. International Journal of Health Geographics, 4, 29, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-4-29
  34. Zimmerman, D. L. : Statistical methods for incompletely and incorrectly geocoded cancer data. In Geocoding Health Data: The Use of Geographic Codes in Cancer Prevention and Control, Research and Practice, Rushton, G., Armstrong, M. P., Gittler, J., Greene, B. R., Pavlik, C. E., West, M. M. and Zimmerman, D. L. (eds). CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, 2008.
  35. Waller, L. A. : Statistical power and design of focused clustering studies. Statistics in Medicine, 15, 765-782, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19960415)15:7/9<765::AID-SIM248>3.0.CO;2-N
  36. Hurley, S. E., Saunders, T. M., Nivas, R., Hertz, A. and Reynolds, P. : Post office box addresses: a challenge for geographic information system-based studies. Epidemiology, 14(4), 386-391, 2003.
  37. Krieger, N., Waterman, P., Lemieux, K., Zierler, S. and Hogan, J. : On the wrong side of the tracts? evaluating the accuracy of geocoding in public health research. American Journal of Public Health, 91(7), 1114-1116, 2001. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.91.7.1114
  38. Ward, M. H., Nuckols, J. R., Giglierano, J., Bonner, M. R., Wolter, C., Airola, M., Mix, W., Colt, J. S. and Hartge, P. : Positional accuracy of two methods of geocoding. Epidemiology, 16(4), 542-547, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ede.0000165364.54925.f3
  39. Mazumdar, S., Rushton, G., Smith, B. J., Zimmerman, D. L. and Donham, K. J. : Geocoding accuracy and the recovery of relationships between environmental exposures and health. International Journal of Health Geographics, 7, 13, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-7-13
  40. Bonner, M. R., Han, D., Nie, J., Rogerson, P., Vena, J. E. and Freudenheim, J. L. : Positional accuracy of geocoded addresses in epidemiologic research. Epidemiology, 14(4), 408-412, 2003.
  41. Cayo, M. R. and Talbot, T. O. : Positional error in automated geocoding of residential addresses. International Journal of Health Geographics, 2, 10, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-2-10
  42. Zhan, F. B., Brender, J. D., De Lima, I., Suarez, L. and Langlois, P. H. : Match rate and positional accuracy of two geocoding methods for epidemiologic research. Annals of Epidemiology, 16(11), 842-849, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2006.08.001
  43. Schootman, M., Sterling, D. A., Struthers, J., Yan, Y., Laboube, T., Emo, B. and Higgs, G. : Positional accuracy and geographic bias of four methods of geocoding in epidemiologic research. Annals of Epidemiology, 17(6), 464-470, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2006.10.015
  44. Zandbergen, P. A. and Green, J. W. : Error and bias in determining exposure potential of children at school locations using proximity-based GIS techniques. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(9), 1363-1370, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.9668
  45. Zandbergen, P. A. : Influence of geocoding quality on environmental exposure assessment of children living near high traffic roads. BMC Public Health, 7, 37, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-7-37
  46. Maantay, J. : Mapping environmental injustices: pitfalls and potential of geographic information systems in assessing environmental health and equity. Environmental Health Perspectives, 110, 161-171, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.02110s2161
  47. Briggs, D., Abellan, J. J. and Fecht, D. : Environmental inequity in England: small area associations between socio-economic status and environmental pollution. Social Sciences and Medicine, 67(10), 1612-1629, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.06.040
  48. Morris, M. S. and Knorr, R. S. : Adult leukemia and proximity-based surrogates for exposure to Pilgrim plant's nuclear emissions. Archives of Environmental Health, 51(4), 266-274, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1080/00039896.1996.9936025
  49. McLaughlin, J. R., Clarke, E. A., Nishri, E. D. and Anderson, T. W. : Childhood leukemia in the vicinity of Canadian nuclear facilities. Cancer Causes and Control, 4(1), 51-58, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00051714
  50. Suarez, L., Brender, J. D., Langlois, P. H., Zhan, F. B. and Moody, K. : Maternal exposures to hazardous waste sites and industrial facilities and risk of neural tube defects in offspring. Annals of Epidemiology, 17(10), 772-777, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2007.05.005
  51. Croen, L. A., Shaw, G. M., Sanbonmatsu, L., Selvin, S. and Buffler, P. A. : Maternal residential proximity to hazardous waste sites and risk for selected congenital malformations. Epidemiology, 8(4), 347-354, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001648-199707000-00001
  52. Elliott, P., Briggs, D., Morris, S., de Hoogh, C., Hurt, C., Jensen, T. K., Maitland, I., Richardson, S., Wakefield, J. and Jarup, L. : Risk of adverse birth outcomes in populations living near landfill sites. BMJ, 323, 363-368, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.323.7309.363
  53. Dolk, H., Vrijheid, M., Armstrong, B., Abramsky, L., Bianchi, F., Garne, E., Nelen, V., Robert, E., Scott, J. E., Stone, D. and Tenconi, R. : Risk of congenital anomalies near hazardous-waste landfill sites in Europe: the EUROHAZCON study. Lancet, 352, 423-427, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(98)01352-X
  54. Tynes, T. and Haldorsen, T. : Electromagnetic fields and cancer in children residing near Norwegian highvoltage power lines. American Journal of Epidemiology, 145, 219-226, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009094
  55. Feychting, M. and Ahlbom, A. : Magnetic fields and cancer in children residing near Swedish high voltage power lines. American Journal of Epidemiology, 138, 467-481, 1993.
  56. Wartenberg, D., Greenberg, M. and Lathrop, R. : Identification and characterization of populations living near high-voltage transmission lines: a pilot study. Environmental Health Perspectives, 101, 626-632, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.93101626
  57. English, P., Neutra, R., Scalf, R., Sullivan, M., Waller, L. and Zhu, L. : Examining associations between childhood asthma and traffic flow using a geographic information system. Environmental Health Perspectives, 107(9), 761-767, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.99107761
  58. Wilhelm, M. and Ritz, B. : Residential proximity to traffic and adverse birth outcomes in Los Angeles county, California, 1994-1996. Environmental Health Perspectives, 111(2), 207-216, 2003.
  59. Reynolds, P., Elkin, E., Scalf, R., Von Behren, J. and Neutra, R. R. : A case-control pilot study of traffic exposures and early childhood leukemia using a geographic information system. Bioelectromagnetics, Suppl 5, S58-68, 2001.
  60. Gilbert, N. L., Woodhouse, S., Stieb, D. M. and Brook, J. R. : Ambient nitrogen dioxide and distance from a major highway. The Science of the Total Environment, 312, 43-46, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-9697(03)00228-6
  61. Briggs, D. J., de Hoogh, C., Gulliver, J., Wills. J., Elliott, P., Kingham, S. and Smallbone, K. : A regression-based method for mapping traffic-related air pollution: application and testing in four contrasting urban environments. The Science of the Total Environment, 253, 151-167, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-9697(00)00429-0
  62. Yu, C. L., Wang, S. F., Pan, P. C., Wu, M. T., Ho, C. K., Smith, T. J., Li, Y., Pothier, L. and Christiani, D. C. : Kaohsiung Leukemia Research Group. : Residential exposure to petrochemicals and the risk of leukemia: using geographic information system tools to estimate individual-level residential exposure. American Journal of Epidemiology, 164(3), 200-207, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwj182
  63. Dearwent, S. M., Jacobs, R. R. and Halbert, J. B. : Locational uncertainty in georeferencing public health datasets. Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 11(4), 329-334, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500173
  64. McElroy, J. A., Remington, P. L., Trentham-Dietz, A., Robert, S. A. and Newcomb, P. A. : Geocoding addresses from a large population-based study: lessons learned. Epidemiology, 14(4), 399-407, 2003.

Cited by

  1. Spatial analysis of PM<sub>10</sub> and cardiovascular mortality in the Seoul metropolitan area vol.29, 2014, https://doi.org/10.5620/eht.2014.29.e2014005